MOSCOW Ministers from gas-exporting countries were meeting in Moscow Tuesday to put the finishing touches to their new club, amid Western fears the group could act as the gas equivalent of the OPEC oil cartel, AFP reported.

The Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) groups Russia, the worlds biggest gas producer, with other gas-rich states such as Iran and Qatar and 11 other gas-exporting countries.

But officials have been at pains to emphasise that the purpose of the annual meeting is to finalise and approve a charter for the body rather than create a cartel to fix prices.

`I emphasise that we have no intention of creating a cartel of producers,` Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said in an interview with the government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta on Monday.

`Our aim is to guarantee an indispensible equilibium between gas suppliers and to coordinate policies between consumer and producer countries.`At the meeting, `we are thinking about the way to establish the rules of the game,` he said.

Initial meetings opened at 0700 GMT at an upscale Moscow hotel and the participants were later due to meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin before a news conference by energy ministers at 1530 GMT.

Members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meet regularly to agree their production quotas in order to influence the price of crude oil on global markets.

But ministers, as well as analysts, agree that a cartel for natural gas makes far less sense.

Gas exports generally require the construction of capital-intensive pipelines and contracts are signed over long-term periods.

Oil exports on the other hand are generally based on a spot market price to the barrel for delivery within relatively short timeframes.

`There is a serious difference between the oil market and the gas market, which renders the idea of the gas cartel superfluous,` said Vyacheslav Bunkov, an analyst with Aton investment group.

The forum, whose creation dates back to 2001, groups Algeria, Bolivia, Brunei, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Equatorial Guinea and Norway will attend the Moscow meeting as observers.

Five of these countries between them control nearly two-thirds of the worlds gas reserves and account for 42 percent of its production - Russia, Iran, Qatar, Venezuela and Algeria.

But Putin last month rejected as `baseless` claims by critics that the forum would act like OPEC and cooperate to fix prices.

`We will not create any cartel, nor sign an agreement on a cartel. None of us will give up part of his sovereignty when decisions are made,` he said.

Iran, Qatar and Russia - the three countries with the worlds largest gas reserves - have also been working create a new forum for joint projects within the forum of the GECF.

Iran sits on the second-biggest proven global gas reserves after Russia but so far has played only a minor role on the gas export market due to huge domestic demand and lack of foreign investment in its gas fields.

Qatar boasts the third-largest proven gas reserves and is targeting the number one position in the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) sector worldwide.